Monday, January 31, 2011
Winston Churchill on libraries
“As you browse about, taking down book after book from the shelves and contemplating the vast, infinitely varied store of knowledge and wisdom which the human race has accumulated and preserved, pride, even in its most innocent forms, is chased from the heart by feelings of awe not untinged with sadness. As on surves the mighty array of sages, saints, historians, scientists, poets and philosophers whose treaures ne will never be able to admire — still less enjoy — the brief tenure of our existence here dominates mind and spirit.” from Painting as a Pastime (via Mighty Girl)
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Getting social
I used the word "game changer" in my last post, and there were two others in my recent history. One was the discovery of blogs and RSS feeds in 2003, which, when I learned about them at a conference, then I made a connection and saw the potential, and started a blog. Also downloaded a feed reader and loaded so many feeds into it that finally it wouldn't load. Yet a world had opened up and there were new discoveries to make each day.
Slowly, I started making connections with other bloggers. A woman at my university, whose work I admired, got in touch with me and let me know there was a blog group meeting on Thursday nights. However, I didn't meet her until I attended a blogging conference that fall. Then I joined the group. It was fun to sit and learn about new aspects of blogging that seemed exciting, but which I never put into play: podcasts, OPML, to name some. My friend and I met at library conferences and participated on several panels together, talking about how we used blogs for information management and why a librarian or library should start a blog. She always encouraged me and is a remarkable, insightful, hard-working individual, not just tech and job-savvy, but well-read, active, into knitting, clog-dancing and having fun.
Those blog groups were fun, we'd talk technology and then go out to dinner and talk more technology. It was a forum where many people learned about getting started with blogging and the range of things that could be done with blogs, sharing news, building communities (like one a woman made for her town and what was going on there,) politics, international issues, science and science librarianship in my case. After I stopped attending regularly several years ago, the group had evolved into something that discussed all sorts of technologies, calling itself a blog and technology group. I don't know what the current status is.
So I continued to read my feeds through Bloglines, which worked most of the time, and then a couple of years ago gave Twitter a look. When I first heard of it, I didn't understand its use. Microblogging? Short snippets of nothing? Then, when I realized it was another content sharing and distribution device, another game changer. I tweeted whatever was interesting, built a following, made connections with people with similar interests (even met some at a conference that I learned about through Twitter,) and perhaps became overwhelmed as I had with blogs and RSS feeds. Today I'm looking for an elusive balance and some sort of strategy. I believe that libraries can use social media to good effect, but I have nothing to quantify it, only examples that I have seen here and there. I don't know the best way to reach patrons who are not using these tools, is it just librarians speaking to one another, or is it as Aaron Tay puts it, a way not to think like a librarian, a way to expand my perspective? I don't know what's next or if these tools will soon seem antiquated like blinking 1990s websites with frames.
Slowly, I started making connections with other bloggers. A woman at my university, whose work I admired, got in touch with me and let me know there was a blog group meeting on Thursday nights. However, I didn't meet her until I attended a blogging conference that fall. Then I joined the group. It was fun to sit and learn about new aspects of blogging that seemed exciting, but which I never put into play: podcasts, OPML, to name some. My friend and I met at library conferences and participated on several panels together, talking about how we used blogs for information management and why a librarian or library should start a blog. She always encouraged me and is a remarkable, insightful, hard-working individual, not just tech and job-savvy, but well-read, active, into knitting, clog-dancing and having fun.
Those blog groups were fun, we'd talk technology and then go out to dinner and talk more technology. It was a forum where many people learned about getting started with blogging and the range of things that could be done with blogs, sharing news, building communities (like one a woman made for her town and what was going on there,) politics, international issues, science and science librarianship in my case. After I stopped attending regularly several years ago, the group had evolved into something that discussed all sorts of technologies, calling itself a blog and technology group. I don't know what the current status is.
So I continued to read my feeds through Bloglines, which worked most of the time, and then a couple of years ago gave Twitter a look. When I first heard of it, I didn't understand its use. Microblogging? Short snippets of nothing? Then, when I realized it was another content sharing and distribution device, another game changer. I tweeted whatever was interesting, built a following, made connections with people with similar interests (even met some at a conference that I learned about through Twitter,) and perhaps became overwhelmed as I had with blogs and RSS feeds. Today I'm looking for an elusive balance and some sort of strategy. I believe that libraries can use social media to good effect, but I have nothing to quantify it, only examples that I have seen here and there. I don't know the best way to reach patrons who are not using these tools, is it just librarians speaking to one another, or is it as Aaron Tay puts it, a way not to think like a librarian, a way to expand my perspective? I don't know what's next or if these tools will soon seem antiquated like blinking 1990s websites with frames.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Intro
Maybe I was always going to be a librarian. The summer I broke my foot (I was 8,) I organized my book shelf by title, put pockets and cards in them and checked them out to my friends. There was one who would not return his books on time and I was strict with him. "I've given you a lot of kindness," he said, referring to the fact that he'd visited me frequently. I still wouldn't budge, which shows how flexible I was, where my mind was. Throughout my childhood and younger years I gravitated toward the local public library, spending considerable time reading and browsing in the stacks. However, when it came to write research papers, I had no idea, I was flummoxed, perhaps having ignored the librarian's useful instructions about the Reader's Guide and other resources. Later, working with faculty and graduate students and seeing how they used databases, indexes and journals, gave me an understanding of how it can be done thoroughly. The graduate students writing theses needed to read virtually everything on their topic, hence the search for obscure journals and interlibrary loan requests.
I went to a small liberal arts college in a midwestern state. There is a path that runs through the middle of campus and at the time most of the humanities classes were held in the buildings on the left side of the path and the science classes were conducted in the buildings on the right. I stuck to the left side of the path. Could not decide on a major, make a choice, I wanted to study everything, as though there were infinite time to do so. Finally I settled on religion, since I knew nothing about it, and my understanding told me that much of literature and art referenced the scriptures, so it was essential to learn. I didn't want college to end, but end it did, and I was without a job, a plan, a clue.
So I went home and applied at a large university, and surprisingly they hired me for an entry-level position in one of their libraries. I had to file corporate report microfiche, keep track of government document receipts in an oppressive ledger, and fix the microfilm machines when they got jammed. I moved up a position, shortly after, and then spent several years applying for higher-level jobs and getting turned down. I did not have an MLS, although the situation certainly seemed to suggest getting one, as the tuition-reimbursement benefits offered by the university were quite generous. I saw other colleagues completing the process and leapfrogging me and I could not make a decision.
What changed was the university went through a reorganization. It was a nervous time and jobs were threatened, and I felt lucky to still be in a position. However, professional positions (reference librarians, for example) in my unit were becoming vacant and not being filled. The reference staff came up with an idea to train the support staff to back them on the reference desk. I took the opportunity and soon discovered that I enjoyed interacting with patrons and had a wide knowledge of the library's resources. My previous years had been behind the scenes in technical services. As a result of this cross-training, I began to feel like I had a stake in the organization, or at least the work of my immediate unit.
Another opportunity arose, this time in a branch library within this same university's library system. It was a two-person library, and I suppose I approached it to advance another level. However, it dawned on me that someone in the process of getting an MLS might be hired for the job, someone showing a commitment to the profession. Then I thought, why not, and I applied for the job and applied to library school. I was accepted for both. Got off to a shaky start at the new job, being thrust in the position of supervising the student workers, but after learning from my mistakes, whether they involved payroll or scheduling and logistics, it worked all right, and gradually I was able to approach every situation with confidence, using the experience and knowledge I had about libraries and being open to what I didn't know.
Library school was fun, although difficult to manage while working full time, and a slow progression, one course per semester. But I delighted in applying what I learned. About that time came the second game changer for me, the arrival of the world wide web into mass consciousness. My computer knowledge was mediocre, I knew how to use a word processor or check email by telnetting to a mainframe, and had mostly used dumb terminals to access the library systems. The web was the great equalizer. When I saw how the browser could take me just about anywhere with a URL, I felt I had arrived, perhaps like "stout Cortez, as he stared at the Pacific") (Keats, Chapman's Homer.) I even learned rudimentary HTML, although web techniques have long since eclipsed my skills (thank heaven for content management systems.)
After completing my degree, I looked for a position and after several months found something interesting on one of the professional websites. It described an opening running a library at a scientific research institute wholly unknown to me, although it turned out to be in the same city where I was working, and in fact I had gone jogging past it on many occasions but never knew what it was. Although I didn't know anything about the science going on there, I knew about the organization of scientific libraries, scientific literature and scientific databases. So there I went. It was a hard adjustment and I felt intimidated, being the only one who did what I did, a librarian in a sea of scientists. However, I knew one thing - I had a habit of finding information, and little by slowly I learned about the research groups and what they did, found out where they published and who they read, went to their talks and gleaned what I could. A scientist at the institute told me he felt he could either do his experiments or follow the literature, so I took on the latter and soon was supplying each scientist relevant papers and citations and stories and leads even before they were requested.
Eventually the family that owned the institute made a gift of it to a large university. In one sense, this gave the scientists and me access to resources such as electronic journals and databases that we couldn't have afforded otherwise. At the same time, with so much available at their desktops, the scientists spent less and less time in the library. I experimented with tools such as blogs, Twitter, and a weekly newsletter. Having seen, however, how other librarians in similar positions took on new responsibilities to increase the value of their units, I know I could have done more. At one point, through the blog and university news channels, I tried to be something of the institute's publicist. Finally, at the end of 2009, I was informed that the institute had a choice between keeping me or funding more scientists and they had chosen the latter.
I don't know what my next move is. Logically, I could use my experience in another academic library setting. At the same time, I have some experience in public libraries (having moonlighted at one and volunteered at another,) and would also consider working within a company that may not have a physical library but would need access to and organization and dissemination of information to meet their goals. I still like the idea of libraries, visited my home town library recently and was awed by the beauty of the facility and the fullness of the book collections. And yet, I might not advise an organization to create a library in the traditional sense.
Where I'm going and where libraries and information are going, I don't know, but I will consider these things in future posts.
I went to a small liberal arts college in a midwestern state. There is a path that runs through the middle of campus and at the time most of the humanities classes were held in the buildings on the left side of the path and the science classes were conducted in the buildings on the right. I stuck to the left side of the path. Could not decide on a major, make a choice, I wanted to study everything, as though there were infinite time to do so. Finally I settled on religion, since I knew nothing about it, and my understanding told me that much of literature and art referenced the scriptures, so it was essential to learn. I didn't want college to end, but end it did, and I was without a job, a plan, a clue.
So I went home and applied at a large university, and surprisingly they hired me for an entry-level position in one of their libraries. I had to file corporate report microfiche, keep track of government document receipts in an oppressive ledger, and fix the microfilm machines when they got jammed. I moved up a position, shortly after, and then spent several years applying for higher-level jobs and getting turned down. I did not have an MLS, although the situation certainly seemed to suggest getting one, as the tuition-reimbursement benefits offered by the university were quite generous. I saw other colleagues completing the process and leapfrogging me and I could not make a decision.
What changed was the university went through a reorganization. It was a nervous time and jobs were threatened, and I felt lucky to still be in a position. However, professional positions (reference librarians, for example) in my unit were becoming vacant and not being filled. The reference staff came up with an idea to train the support staff to back them on the reference desk. I took the opportunity and soon discovered that I enjoyed interacting with patrons and had a wide knowledge of the library's resources. My previous years had been behind the scenes in technical services. As a result of this cross-training, I began to feel like I had a stake in the organization, or at least the work of my immediate unit.
Another opportunity arose, this time in a branch library within this same university's library system. It was a two-person library, and I suppose I approached it to advance another level. However, it dawned on me that someone in the process of getting an MLS might be hired for the job, someone showing a commitment to the profession. Then I thought, why not, and I applied for the job and applied to library school. I was accepted for both. Got off to a shaky start at the new job, being thrust in the position of supervising the student workers, but after learning from my mistakes, whether they involved payroll or scheduling and logistics, it worked all right, and gradually I was able to approach every situation with confidence, using the experience and knowledge I had about libraries and being open to what I didn't know.
Library school was fun, although difficult to manage while working full time, and a slow progression, one course per semester. But I delighted in applying what I learned. About that time came the second game changer for me, the arrival of the world wide web into mass consciousness. My computer knowledge was mediocre, I knew how to use a word processor or check email by telnetting to a mainframe, and had mostly used dumb terminals to access the library systems. The web was the great equalizer. When I saw how the browser could take me just about anywhere with a URL, I felt I had arrived, perhaps like "stout Cortez, as he stared at the Pacific") (Keats, Chapman's Homer.) I even learned rudimentary HTML, although web techniques have long since eclipsed my skills (thank heaven for content management systems.)
After completing my degree, I looked for a position and after several months found something interesting on one of the professional websites. It described an opening running a library at a scientific research institute wholly unknown to me, although it turned out to be in the same city where I was working, and in fact I had gone jogging past it on many occasions but never knew what it was. Although I didn't know anything about the science going on there, I knew about the organization of scientific libraries, scientific literature and scientific databases. So there I went. It was a hard adjustment and I felt intimidated, being the only one who did what I did, a librarian in a sea of scientists. However, I knew one thing - I had a habit of finding information, and little by slowly I learned about the research groups and what they did, found out where they published and who they read, went to their talks and gleaned what I could. A scientist at the institute told me he felt he could either do his experiments or follow the literature, so I took on the latter and soon was supplying each scientist relevant papers and citations and stories and leads even before they were requested.
Eventually the family that owned the institute made a gift of it to a large university. In one sense, this gave the scientists and me access to resources such as electronic journals and databases that we couldn't have afforded otherwise. At the same time, with so much available at their desktops, the scientists spent less and less time in the library. I experimented with tools such as blogs, Twitter, and a weekly newsletter. Having seen, however, how other librarians in similar positions took on new responsibilities to increase the value of their units, I know I could have done more. At one point, through the blog and university news channels, I tried to be something of the institute's publicist. Finally, at the end of 2009, I was informed that the institute had a choice between keeping me or funding more scientists and they had chosen the latter.
I don't know what my next move is. Logically, I could use my experience in another academic library setting. At the same time, I have some experience in public libraries (having moonlighted at one and volunteered at another,) and would also consider working within a company that may not have a physical library but would need access to and organization and dissemination of information to meet their goals. I still like the idea of libraries, visited my home town library recently and was awed by the beauty of the facility and the fullness of the book collections. And yet, I might not advise an organization to create a library in the traditional sense.
Where I'm going and where libraries and information are going, I don't know, but I will consider these things in future posts.
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